once the bleeding starts
by perfectlyrose
Summary: He couldn't live without her. Sure, he would keep on breathing, would learn how to survive without the sustenance that was her smile, but it wouldn't be living. He had to get her back. (a Doomsday fic)


for the lovely dirty-brian on tumblr who surprisingly requested some Doomsday angst. Her prompt was Ten realizing that he's not going to be able to get Rose back (before he comes up with the idea to say goodbye)

* * *

 _"this story is not a fairy tale,  
there is no happy ending,  
there is only a tale written in the blood of star-crossed lovers,  
it stings like skin against a rose's thorns,  
and once the bleeding starts, it won't stop,  
not until one soul is left alive while the other falls,  
for grief is a star's favorite antic."_

 _— oh, who knew the stars could be so cruel? / k.s._ (worthystevie on tumblr)

* * *

The Doctor stared at the monitor, trying desperately to figure out a reason that the results being shown could be false. They had to be wrong. They _had_ to be.

He ran a hand over his face, skin catching on the stubble that he'd been too busy to get rid of for days. There had to be a way through. This couldn't be the end. He squeezed his eyes shut and the image of her falling towards what he had called hell, of her screaming and desperate and terrified played across the back of his eyelids, every detail crystal clear.

He hated that he couldn't forget a single nanosecond of that day despite the fact that it had already been two weeks. He remembered the cold clawing feeling in his stomach when he sent her away, convinced it was for the best, that as long as she was safe he would be okay without her.

(How could he have know what being without felt like? It was like he was having to learn how to breathe all over again, like he was constantly struggling to draw in sufficient oxygen.)

He could remember the warm hope warring with the cold fear when she reappeared, the way the emotions twined around each other as it became obvious that she was intent on staying with him even if it meant sacrificing the family he knew she'd dreamed of all her life.

He always cringed when he remembered how he'd yelled at her. She'd brushed it off though, just like she always did when his emotional intelligence failed to match her own. They'd laughed and teased and flirted like it was just another day in the life, like she hadn't just chosen him over her mother and was currently trying to save her planet in her original time.

He remembered the way the hope started to melt the fear.

The moment her lever went offline was as clear as everything else. The panic and determination he saw on her face and the petrifying fear that overtook him as she moved to reset the lever. Time had seemed to move in slow motion as she finally pushed it upright and the breach opened fully once more.

He could still feel the scratch of his raw throat as he screamed for her to hold on, impotent in his desperation. He'd reached out for her but it was useless, he was useless. She was right there, struggling for her life and he was helpless to save her.

She'd lost her grip and it was like he was there just to watch her fall. The look she'd sent him over Pete's shoulder when he'd appeared in the nick of time to save her had haunted him since that moment. It was a moment of "don't make me go" and "it's not your fault" and the emotions that were always present that he'd stupidly avoided naming or letting her voice.

The moments just after she'd disappeared he'd watched the breach fold in on itself like a crumpled piece of paper until it smoothed back into a solid wall, nothing more than drywall and rebar with no hint of what it had been, of what it had taken from him.

He remembered walking up to the wall and pressing himself against it, not daring to hope that some part of her lingered. The long walk down to the sublevels and the TARDIS was taken in a daze. He stepped over the remains of cybermen and humans alike, too preoccupied with the utter numbness running through his hearts and mind to pay any attention.

Those first hours were the worst. He'd opened the TARDIS doors and had been assailed with the mournful song of his ship who grieved for the loss of Rose as well. He'd silently sent them into the Vortex before collapsing on the jumpseat, trying to ignore all the memories of sitting here with her, trying to ignore her scent lingering in the room and how quiet it seemed without her.

(How could he have guessed what it would be like to have her ripped away? He thought he'd imagined it in all its possible permutations but how could he have calculated what it felt like to be missing a heart? To feel like an empty husk hollowed of all emotions but pain and grief and the all encompassing weight of _loss_?)

(It was learning to breathe again because this body had never known life without her and he didn't know how to function without her terrifyingly slow heartbeat setting the pace of his existence.)

He couldn't live without her. Sure, he would keep on breathing, would learn how to survive without the sustenance that was her smile, but it wouldn't be living.

He had to get her back.

The Doctor had made that decision two weeks ago and he'd been searching for a way to get back to her, to bring her home, almost non-stop. He slept once and swore not to do so again until she was safe and back in his arms.

(The nightmares were the worst he'd ever experienced, twisted events showing him Rose's death over and over, combining her fall with the last moments of the Time War, gave him images of her body smashed beyond repair on that thrice damned white wall, glassy eyes devoid of life yet still accusing.)

Hygiene and food had been pushed to the wayside in his single-minded pursuit of a solution. She was counting on him, he knew she was. She'd promised forever, said she had made her choice and she wasn't going to leave him and he was going to do his damndest to make sure she could keep her promises.

He did calculation after calculation, ran countless simulations, trying to find a way through the void at any cost.

Every single one came back with the same answer: it was impossible. The Doctor tried again and again, changing every potential variable, accounting for every plausible and implausible circumstance and it still came out the same.

He chucked the TARDIS manual out the doors and into a supernova when everything in it told him the same thing his simulations were - crossing the void without assistance from another TARDIS when the universes had been sealed off was too dangerous to be attempted.

This was his last chance, his last set of equations and simulations, his last ditch effort to find a way home.

(He'd never realized before Rose how true it was that home could be a person, had never experienced the feeling of homesickness before she was gone.)

The monitor dinged, displayed the same results as before. Impossible. Failed.

He wanted to rage, to punch the screen so the words wouldn't laugh at him anymore, wanted to destroy the whole damn universe if it meant he could get her back. But oh, that was his only option. If he were to punch through the void both universes would collapse and he wouldn't get more than a second with the woman he was trying so desperately to get back to.

It was almost worth it.

The only thing that stilled his hand was that Rose's last look in that single second would be one of disappointment.

He hung his head, reaching out to turn off the monitor. It wasn't as cathartic as punching it but replacement parts were hard to come by and he didn't want to take a trip to the medbay anyways.

He'd failed. He couldn't get Rose back, couldn't bring her home.

The anger faded into grief once more, threatening to drown him in its oppressive heaviness once more.

(Breathing hadn't gotten any easier.)

Tears pricked the back of his eyes but he refused to let them fall. He didn't deserve the release of crying. He'd _failed_. He'd failed _Rose_.

He stumbled back, away from the console, and ran into the hand rail. His hand clenched in the purple blouse he'd filched from where she'd left it lying in a pile in the laundry room when the console room had stopped smelling of her.

Slowly, he slid to the floor. He wanted to scream until his throat was as raw as it had been on the day he lost her, he wanted to cry, he wanted to curl up and sleep and wake up and find out that this was just some horrible dream. He wanted Rose to wrap him in one of her hugs and let him know that it was going to be alright.

(She always conveyed that without saying a word, without the platitudes others might have uttered.)

He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his forehead on crossed arms, purple blouse dangling from his fingertips. None of it mattered anymore. Rose was gone and he'd failed and would never see her again.

He let the tears fall finally, giving into wracking heaves and sobs that stole the little breath he had left as the TARDIS hummed around him, as distraught as her pilot.


End file.
